As a jet, landing gear down, roared over them like a swooping hawk on
its way in to Dulles Airport, Faith Lockhart closed her eyes and
pretended for a moment that she was on that plane, and instead of
landing, it was beginning some far-flung journey. As she slowly opened
her eyes, the car took an exit off the highway and they left the
unsettling glare of sodium lights behind. They were soon sailing past
jagged rows of trees on both sides of the road, the wide, grassy
ditches deep and soggy; the dull pulse of flat-looking stars was now
their only source of light other than the car’s twin beams stabbing the
darkness.
“I don’t understand why Agent Reynolds couldn’t come tonight,” she
said.
“The simple answer is, you’re not the only investigation she has going,
Faith,” Special Agent Ken Newman replied. “But I’m not exactly a
stranger, am I? We’re just going to talk, like the other times.
Pretend I’m Brooke Reynolds. We’re all on the same team.”
The car turned onto another, even more isolated road. On this stretch
the trees were replaced by denuded fields awaiting the final scrape of
the bulldozers. In a year’s time there would be almost as many homes
here as there had been trees before, as suburban sprawl continued its
push. Now the land simply looked ravaged, naked. And bleak, perhaps
because of what was to come. In that regard, the land and Faith
Lockhart were as one.
Newman glanced over at her. Although he didn’t like to admit it, he
felt uneasy around Faith Lockhart, as though he were seated next to a
ball of wired C-4 with no idea when it might explode. He shifted in
his seat. His skin was a little raw where the leather of his shoulder
holster usually rubbed against his skin. Most people developed a
callus at that spot, but his skin just kept blistering and then peeling
off. Ironically, he felt that the twinge of pain gave him an edge
because he never relaxed; it was a clear warning that if he let down
his guard, that small discomfort could become a fatal one. Tonight,
however, because he was wearing body armor, the holster wasn’t scraping
his skin; the pain and heightened sense of awareness were not nearly as
strong.
Faith could feel the blood rush through her ears, all senses elevated,
the way they were when you were lying in bed late at night and hearing
a strange, troubling sound. When you were a child and that happened,
you raced to your parents’ bed and climbed in, to be wrapped up,
consoled by loving, understanding arms. Her parents were dead and she
was now thirty-six years old. Who was out there for Faith Lockhart?
“And after tonight, it’ll be Agent Reynolds instead of me,” Newman
said. “You’re comfortable with her, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure ‘comfort’ applies to situations like this.”
“Sure it does. It’s very important, in fact. Reynolds is a straight
shooter. Believe me, if it weren’t for her, this thing would be going
nowhere. You haven’t exactly given us much to go on. But she believes
in you. So long as you don’t do anything to destroy that confidence,
you have a powerful ally in Brooke Reynolds. She cares about you.”
Faith crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest. She was
about five-five, and her torso was short. Her bosom was flatter than
she would have liked, but her legs were long and well shaped. If
nothing else, she could always count on her legs to get attention. The
defined muscles in her calves and thighs, visible through her sheer
stockings, were enough to cause Newman’s gaze to flicker over them
several times with what appeared to be mild interest, she noted.
Faith swatted her long auburn hair out of her face and rested her hand
on the bridge of her nose. A few white strands of hair floated among
the darker. They were not yet noticeable, but that would change with
time. In fact, the pressure she was under would undoubtedly accelerate
the aging process. Besides hard work, agile wits and poise, Faith’s
good looks, she knew, had helped her career. It was shallow to believe